Kessler is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of The Confidante: Condoleezza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy. The book, which revealed new details on the making of Bush administration’s foreign policy, was described as “brilliantly reported” by the New York Times Book Review and generated news articles and reviews in two dozen countries around the world.[2]
Kessler's reporting played a role in two foreign policy controversies during the presidency of George W. Bush. He was called to testify in the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, in which he was questioned about a 2003 telephone conversation with Libby in which the name of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative, might have been discussed.[3] (Libby recalled they had discussed Plame; Kessler said they did not.[4]) Meanwhile, a 2004 telephone conversation between Kessler and Steve J. Rosen, a senior official at American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), was at the core of the AIPAC leaking case.[5] The federal government recorded the call and made it the centerpiece of its 2005 indictment of Rosen and an alleged co-conspirator; the charges were dropped in 2009.
The Wall Street Journal called Kessler "one of the most aggressive journalists on the State Department beat."[6] Kessler, a specialist on nuclear proliferation (especially in Iran and North Korea) and the Middle East, wrote the first article on the North Korea nuclear facility being built in Syria that was destroyed by Israeli jets.[7] He was immediately attacked for spreading neoconservative propaganda [8] but his reporting turned out to be correct and apologies were later offered.[9] In a lengthy article, Kessler also revealed the Bush administration's internal decision-making that led to the Iraq war.[10] He traveled with three different Secretaries of State -- Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Rodham Clinton -- and for several years wrote a blog about his experiences on those trips.[11] An article he wrote on apparent tensions between Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld during a 2006 trip to Iraq[12] was later denounced by Rumsfeld as "just fairly typical Washington Post stuff."[13]
Kessler joined The Washington Post in 1998 as the national business editor and later served as economic policy reporter. Kessler also was a reporter with Newsday for eleven years, covering the White House, politics, the United States Congress, airline safety and Wall Street. His investigative articles on airline safety led to the indictments of airline executives and federal officials for fraud, prompted congressional hearings into safety issues and spurred the federal government to impose new safety rules for DC-9 jets and begin regular inspections of foreign airlines. He won the Premier Award from the Aviation Space Writers Association and the investigative reporting award from the Society of the Silurians.
At Newsday, Kessler shared in two Pulitzer Prizes given for spot news reporting.
